The dawn of UTSA football approaches

Just getting settled back in after the jaunt to Las Vegas, AKA the City Where People Go to Purposely Make Bad Decisions, for the Western Athletic Conference’s annual football preview.

Had my first two In-N-Out Burgers (awesome), took a side trip to the Grand Canyon (more awesome) and played in a 250-player poker tournament (finished 92nd: not-so-awesome). And oh yeah, talked a ton of football.

The actual content of which wasn’t hugely important considering UTSA and Texas State won’t be joining for another fall.

More than anything, it was an opportunity to gauge the mood, which was surprisingly upbeat considering all that’s gone on over the past year. I’m not the Mentalist or anything like that, but I think I’d have been able to tell if there was anything forced, or glaringly negative. And for all the issues the WAC still faces, I didn’t get that sense at all.

From what I could gather, commissioner Karl Benson is pretty confident moving forward, as the seven future coaches seemed to be. We shall see if his spirits are well-founded as we continue to move through what promises to be an eventful era for the WAC, and college football as a whole.

From the standpoint of Roadrunners coach Larry Coker — aside: a colleague of mine who shared a connection with him from Dallas delighted in the fact he flew coach, with the rest of the regular people — there was one minor comment that stood out to me. Way more than any of the Xs and Os stuff that, admittedly, can get pretty dry as the day wears on and the interviews pile up.

More than recruiting, which had been his expectation coming in, Coker said the biggest challenge he and his new program are facing is facilities. Or rather, the lack thereof.

This won’t be an immediate problem.

But taking a macro view, as the Roadrunners seek to pursue better recruits, getting a football-specific facility is an absolute necessity. And considering it’s going to come with a price tag of millions of dollars UTSA doesn’t have, it’s going to take a Herculean fund-raising effort to get that done. Definitely something to keep an eye on in the coming years.

On the more practical matters, specifically UTSA’s first season, which will get underway on Sunday with the first official workout.

The Roadrunners are expecting 90 players to report on Friday. The vast majority of this year’s signing class have already been on campus with summer school, with the only absences being Madison RB Troy Williams (academics, legal issues) and Brenham DB Desmon Mathis (academics).

It’s the first of nine scheduled practices — all of which will be closed to the public and media, save the first 30 minutes — before the first game on Sept. 3, against Northeastern St.

Media day is next Tuesday, but considering how drastically the team is going to change with the influx of new players, I’m probably going to wait for a week or two before providing any significant preview material.

There are a handful of guys you can pretty safely pencil in for starting positions barring injury — players like QB Eric Soza, LB Steven Kurfehs and DB Mark Waters — but otherwise, I expect things will be fairly wide open.

As such, those position battles will even more notable than they would on a more established team. That should make for an interesting camp.

In tandem with those competitions will be how the coaching staff chooses to handle redshirts. The team is in a precarious position in that regard.

With only two scholarship classes, and virtually zero experience, the Roadrunners need every body they can get. But at the same time, they’re going to have to put at least a few players on the shelf, lest they graduate two full classes at the same time in a couple of years.

It’ll be a delicate balance, among the mountain of other story lines to follow. They’re going to start unfolding here pretty quick, so check back for regular updates as UTSA football finally gets underway this fall.